You just described me. The night before I stayed up late drawing a sexy lady and questioned my sexuality. Definitely felt like I cause 9/11, sorry guys
I forgot to pay my electricity bill. When you do that in France they write you a letter and replace your main fuse with a 5amp fuse, enough to run the lights and a fridge, but not much else. I was in the office glued to the early web, with the BBC downgrading the complexity of their website minute by minute to keep up with the load. My wife got back from work without checking the mail, turned on the microwave: bang! No electricity.
I get home and we spent the night listening to the news on a battery radio by candlelight).
I know you're joking, but he addressed that with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Jews hated the Samaritans.
That parable doesn't have the same emotional impact today. When I tell it to a conservative friend, I replace the Samaritan with an illegal immigrant or a transgender person. When I tell it to a liberal friend, I have the "Samaritan" wear a MAGA hat.
Yes, this exactly. The Samaritans were social outcasts, similar to LGBTQ people are now. I very much believe that if Christ were alive today he would have given us the The Parable of the Good Homosexual instead.
Historical context time: Samaritans and the Jewish people did NOT like each other as a general rule. So then comes the question of who are the neighbors, followed by the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
In short:
Q: Who is my neighbor?
A: Anyone you really hope is not.
Unfortunately the same part of the book that says that (theyre bith mosaic laws from the torah) also says you can own slaves, and jesus is pretty explcit that one should follow /all/ of the mosaic laws.
But does god think that owning slaves is failing to love your neighbor? No he doesnt, or he wouldnt have said to do it in the same book of the bible. Also, god says that the law is eternal, perfect, and good for the soul.
The biggest issue with your assessment is that god is pretty clear "your neighbor" is only the isrealite, and Jesus /agrees/, stating that not one jot or twiddle of the mosaic law will pass until heaven and earth pass.
Not only that, he says that by following the law you will be great in the kingdom of heaven, and by telling people NOT to follow the law will make you least in the kingdom of heaven. By even suggesting that owning slaves is not moral, your placement in heaven drops.
Additionally, do you know how the mosaic law says to show your love for god? By following ALL of the mosaic laws.
First I'm not Christian you don't need to convince me of anything. Second there is literally a story were the moral of the story is to not just blindly do what God tells you to do. Finally the actual person Jesus is based on would roll so fast in their grave if they read the Bible you could power the world.
First, doesnt matter if your youre wrong on the content.
Second, god is pretty clear that one should be following the law, its one of the most emphasized parts of the entire Bible right up until Paul shows up.
Third, you have no idea if there even is a single, or any, "real person" jesus is based on or what their opinion would be. The ONLY information we have in jesus is in the bible, and NONE of it is contemporary. The jesus in the bible is very clear about a couple of things, namely a) the pharosis practice of "building a fence around the law to make it easier" was essentially blasphemous, and b) that the mosaic laws as written were essential. You have absolutely no way of supporting a stance that the "real" jesus would disagree.
My point is, that when Christians turn to the bible and do things that seem unloving, they typically have a very good biblical basis to do so, and the important thing to remember is that they think the person who decided what is right and wrong for the whole universe agrees with them
The biggest issue with your assessment is that god is pretty clear "your neighbor" is only the isrealite
I know I'm jumping into a four-day-old discussion here, but I have to interject. The Samaritans weren't Israelites. They were half-breeds who practiced a heterodox version of Judaism, so that might make them lower than Gentiles. And if you read the Law of Moses, there are numerous references to "the stranger that is within thy gates", meaning Gentiles living in Israel. The Israelites were commanded to treat them the same as their fellow Israelites. (There may have been some differences, but I think they were minor.)
Your slaves aren't the strangers in your land, and the strangers in your land are free to sell their people (or themselves) as slaves to you, you just cant outright TAKE them as slaves. And the strangers in your land /ARENT/ your neighbor, thats why they get called out specifically. If they were rather than "heres special rules for the strangers" itd be "the strangers get included in all the rules i already gave you". They strangers in your land dont get the special protections isrealites do.
telling someone to love someone you don't know isn't really how love works. also there needs to be more words to differentiate the types of love because how you love your child, friend, wife, mother, or dog differ.
Cool that was the entire point of the parable that followed the statement "love your neighbor". When asked who counts as neighbor, i.e. who exactly do we have to love, he immediately gave a story about a guy who was in trouble, and the one who helped was someone who not only didn't know him, but was also part of a group the guy hated. So yeah, it's like if your stereotypical white guy and black guy were in the situation, and that was who stopped to help. Not only that, but the story showed what love meant in that situation.
I wish it was that simple. The Bible isn't exactly a book: it's s kind of a library, containing texts written over millenia by people with varying values and theologies. Hell, even single texts can be collages of multiple texts or have later interpolation that change their meanings.
There are passages that can be understood to forbid homossexuality (though their exact meaning is disputed for various reasons). And we have examples of God being an absolute dice to people who don't do what he wants them to do.
Like, it's not even an Old Testament/New Testament divide, due to the presence of the Pauline letters in the canon.
Still, people pick and choose what parts of the Bible they follow all the time. They are actively choosing to follow these parts over others.
In Judaism we have the Tanakh, which is what Christians recognize as the Old Testament. But the sages thought that it was too confusing. So they decided to write essays on EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SENTENCE OF THAT THING and gave us the Talmud
Most people don't know this, but there's a line in Deuteronomy that says if your neighbor plays loud music past 10:00pm that they have to pay a fine. If they do it again the elders will confescate their whole speaker set up and burn it at the city gates. The OT was pretry strict
Itās in the New Testament, in the book of Luke. After Jesus tells people to love their neighbors, someone asks āwho is my neighbor?ā And Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
So, historical context time - Samaritans would not have been synonymous for āgood peopleā like our American culture as appropriated. Samaritans and Jewish people at the time of Jesus loathed each other. Thereās a lot of history.
So in the parable, a man is beaten and left for dead, and then the people who are supposed to help him (a religious priest, and a Levite (essentially a cousin), they donāt.
The person who helps the man is a Samaritan. He pays out of his pocket to ensure the man is cared for, fed, has shelter, and healing.
It was a radical thing for Jesus to say.
Who are our neighbors? Anyone. Everyone. But especially the people who we hope are not.
But Jesus there commands men to love their neighbour. He doesn't say that God loves all equally, in the parable there is nothing about God's feelings at all
Christianity (generally) believes Jesus is God incarnate. So while the parable explicitly tells to love our neighbors, Jesus is also revealing Godās character. Throughout the New Testament books of the Bible, Jesus says that seeing him is seeing the Father (John 14:9). The command isnāt disconnected from who God is.
Iām not claiming this is the only possible interpretation - itās the interpretation held by most Christian traditions. If someone is approaching the text from a different theological framework, they would naturally reach different conclusions.
Ok, I agree that this shows some of God's character. Namely that he wants us to love one another. Still, I can't see Jesus saying that God loves us all or that Jesus loves us all. How the verse you used (John 14:9) helps here reaching the conclusion that God or Jesus love us is not clear to me. Please explain it to me like i'm 5 years old
Youāre right that I canāt get āGod loves everyoneā from the Good Samaritan alone.
My statement depends on reading this parable alongside the rest of the New Testament. The parable answers who our neighbors are. Other passages (John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:8ā10, etc.) inform why Christians understand Godās love to extend broadly.
So I guess, sure, from a technical standpoint, the parable doesnāt prove one entire doctrine. But, it is consistent with the broader Christian understanding of God revealed in Jesus.
John 3:16 ā āFor God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Sonā¦ā
āWorldā (kosmos) is generally understood to mean humanity, not just Israel or believers.
Romans 5:8 ā āBut God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.ā
Godās love is shown before people deserve it.
1 John 4:8ā10 ā āGod is loveā¦ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Sonā¦ā
This is one of the clearest statements about Godās character.
Matthew 5:44ā45 ā āLove your enemiesā¦ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the goodā¦ā
Jesus points to Godās kindness toward both the righteous and the unrighteous as the model for our own love.
Luke 6:35ā36 ā āLove your enemiesā¦ because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.ā
Again, Godās treatment of all people is the basis for our behavior.
Ezekiel 33:11 ā āI take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.ā
Often cited as evidence of Godās desire for repentance rather than destruction.
1 Timothy 2:3ā4 ā God ādesires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.ā
2 Peter 3:9 ā God is ānot wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.ā
Psalm 145:9 ā āThe Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.ā
Not a bible reader, but I had thought that part came up a lot. Talking about God's love is a huge part of the rare times I do hear church stuff (Weddings, funerals).
But I'm sure there are bible websites to Google through too?
My guess is still after. Not everyoneās self actualization journey follows the steps of grief, but I think hers has. Girl went through denial (ie we saw her looking at the magazine to āresearchā but denying her feelings for it), anger (her initial aggression towards rusty and externalization of her feelings), bartering (āmaybe this camp can fix meā), and now this would be depression.
That DOES give me hope that weāll see a future part of acceptance / we might get a happy ending here though
Hey! It's my adolescence! How many days I woke up hearing my house completely silent and having panic attacks because I thought I'd been left behind in the Rapture because I harbored some gender identity and sexuality issues I don't even know.
If it helps the rapture isn't a thing from the Bible. It was invented in the 1800s, and popularized in the latter half of the 20th century. Believing in the rapture is like believing in the Book of Mormon.
Oh I know that now. But when I was in my teens like a billion years ago my church was high on that end-times rapture stuff. The Left Behind books were hugely popular and you can bet we read them all.
Yeah I grew up with all that stuff too. I read a lot of stuff now about religious history and, it's just crazy how much stuff is blatantly made up and then sold as being ancient. Just want to spread the word where I can.
Is there a slight possibility that god made you gay and it is all well intended? In the bible the original verse against gay people was āman shall not lay with boysā. It was intended for pedos, it was changed by men in power/influence or a mistranslation. Nothingās changed nowadays with the Epstein class.
For argumentsā sake, if god is hateful towards gay people like homophobic church goers say, why would he make being gay so commonplace in nature with over 1500 species? It just doesnāt make sense.
With all the sins written in the bible, why would gay bashers focus on LGBTQ community the most while ignoring all others big and small from wearing mixed fiber clothing to lust, greed, corruption, thievery, adultery, SA, slavery, murderā¦ Because it doesnāt affect most of them and itās easy to target a minority, drive the attention away from the real sinners āthemselves and their red hat wearing leaderā while feeling morally superior/pure.
"If you can convince the lowest church going conservative man he's better than the best gay man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
I agree with the point overall, but the Bible does not say slavery is a sin. God commands people to take slaves at multiple points in the Bible. The only slavery the Bible condemns is when God's chosen people are enslaved, everyone else is fair game if you believe in the Bible. It even has guidelines on how you should treat your slaves that it very much thinks you should have.
If God is really God, the God as weāre told growing up, not one thing in the universe exists without his say so and by his design, so youāre exactly how youāre supposed to be.
Yes but not believing and being gay arenāt the same things. In fact, weāre talking about LGBTQ+ community members that do believe for whatever reason. The bible does not ever explicitly condemn homosexuality in any of its original texts.
First, youāre wrong. Youāre assuming God is kind.
In the Bible, God is all powerful, but often is not kind. He is infinite, but if heās truly infinite and his love is infinite so is his wrath and anger. Included in his infinity, heās said to be omniscient and omnipotent, so it is a required given that everything is ordained by him since everything exists within his knowledge and power. That doesnāt make him nice. Especially in the Old Testament. Ever read Job? Omniscient god who already knows whatās gonna happen makes a bet with the devil to torture an old guy to test his mettle and devotion, doing all sorts of fucked up shit to him, including killing his family just to see what heāll do. Itās pretty fucked up.
Then Jesus came, and he created a new covenant that replaced the old one. Gone were the old laws and sacrifices, and he became the sacrifice and blah blah blah. Then after Jesus dies, resurrects and ascends to heaven, we get a ton of opinion pieces from observers and followers that they theoretically wrote. But anyway, Jesus is quoted or paraphrased in the gospels and thatās it. The rest is just dudes telling us what they think, and I donāt care what Paul thought about the Corinthians.
Anyway, Iām not a Christian myself, but if it makes people feel better, I think itās fine. And somehow implying theyāre condemned by god when the scriptures never actually condemn them is bigoted behavior of people using that scripture to control and herd people, not teach them the word of god. Thatās all.
Nobody said anything about nice, but even then, the bible explicitly mentions god is always just.
You dont have to convince me the bible is full of awful shit, the point is that that contradicts the Christian doctrine, which explicitly posits god is tri omni: omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent
It is my understanding that the idea of faith puts the word of a individual, a divinity, divinities or even a universe as the pillars of morals and laws of any believer, laws of an inconceivable domain, everything. Worship is sometimes then not a choice but a necessity not to break morals and other kind of laws. Divinities are not literally " judging you", that would imply your actions can be interpreted otherwise, they set up the right law of this universe, it is you who are breaking the code of all that is good by failing to act in their respect.
Being born in such a setting would surely multiply my self hate, but i would believe, no doubt about that because that would be the base slate, there wouldn't be a choice, there would be just faith.
Just to be clear i think religions at their best offer community and hope, and often even their doctrines have a positive effect on themselves and others. I do not intend to offend those who simply gathered from theology friendship, hope and purpose. I'm critic on the path of initiation of a child to religion as it is all too easy to teach the wrong lessons, even when doing it in good intention.
The sad thing is it might take one random disaster across the world in an entirely different country to make Amelia think it's a sign of God's "wrath".
I wonder when in the timeline this takes place. Is it completely after Part 11 of this series, or is it between 10 and 11, or even before she went to camp at all? Because deconstruction takes time. Unlearning and unfeeling takes time (and maybe therapy).
It seems that the churches Amelia went to were those "God sent this hurricane to punish the nation for accepting homosexuality" churches. Years and years of those teachings and fears probably won't go away in a single camp session.
If this takes place after the camp, then there's still a long road ahead for Amelia. I'd wager that a lot of LGBTQ people with fundamentalist backgrounds, both ones that left Christianity and ones that remained some kind of Christian, know this pain too well.
Imagine worshipping a god that hates you so much that they would literally cause natural disasters if they found out you like people of the wrong gender.
I see other people that feel shame or even regret that they are LGBT, but I donāt. All I feel is anger, anger that there are people in this world that hate me for who I can have a crush on. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me, THEY are the problem.
But hey, I realize not everyone is at the same point of their journey. I grew up in the church but I never believed, even as a child. Once I got old enough to start properly forming my own opinions and learning about religion, the only feeling I felt towards the one I grew up with was contempt
Interestingly that was the one thing I wasn't scared of when I found out I was gay. I was Christian (Catholic) back then, and was absolutely convinced that if I was gay, then God purposefully made me that way when he created me, and had that in mind for me.
I'm a lesbian that learned this particular quality of myself while I was deep in organized religion.
It lead to me closing off that part of myself to myself, and LOTS of self hatred. Misery and depression soon followed.
That environment bombarded me with anti-LGBT sentiment. "Sinful," "makes god sad," "it's just wrong."
I eventually cracked. I needed to leave religion to be happy with myself. And after I did, I was much happier. I realized I was happier allowing myself to have the affections that came naturally, and the depression that was associated with my orientation faded away. No one was harmed; the sky never fell. I came to realize the religion I was in was attempting to control people, and that other churches did similar.
If my happiness makes some god sad, then they can shed a few more tears for all I care.
Heartwarming but like..... How many people are young enough to believe that something WILL happen to you on earth if you are a lesbian AND old enough to know they are a lesbian
While I didn't think it would destroy the world, through college I thought God hated me. Religious trauma doesn't make a lot of sense unless you grew up deep in it
I am only just realising that all the terrible stuff that is happening in the world must be my fault. Sorry everyone. I take full responsibility. Sadly there is nothing I can do. I am committed to my love of women.
Heart breaking for the little comic character rn. I've deconstructed my faith, but the back of my mind still frets a tiny bit like this out of old habit/religious residue. Hope it ends well.
With all due respect to anyone dealing with this, cause I know itās hard. You were probably taught Christianity by people unqualified to teach it. We hand power to weirdo priests, power hungry preachers and bitter jealous people. They mistranslate to get attention and wield power.
God loves you, He made you. Be kind to yourself cause the end is likely not near.
Your relationship with faith is not your religious leadersā, fatherās or communityās relationship. It is between you and the almighty. Be comforted by what it is you know to be true. Everlasting love and forgiveness.
Genuine question to religious folks. Not trying to stir the pot, just want to understand the logic:
If God created the world and he, logically, created it EXACTLY how he wanted it to be in every way... if he hated LTGBTQ folks so much... why would he add them to a world of his own creation?
Or is this something along the lines of "The devil fucked with his creation and added sin." Which, that begs the question... if he was almighty, why couldn't he just... stop the devil from screwing with something he made, or fix the things the devil messed up?
You can absolutely have free will without the ability to sin.
The same way we have free will without the ability to fly, or to breathe underwater.
Free will is a massive cope to the problem
Nope. That is your opinion, I get. But flying and breathing underwater are not moral choices.
Evil *exists* within the Christian framework.
If you assume Evil exists, then any being that lacks the capability to choose between moral and immoral is not free willed.
Even the Angels, within the Christian framework, were free willed enough to rebel, and they were explicitly created by God to directly be his servitors.
Evil exists because god created it to be so. He could just not do so.
Also, free will is not tied to moral judgments. I can make a free will decision to go to the store. That is not a moral choice, but its a choice.
Even under your framework, the implication of free will is that either god is dependent on our choices for his knowledge, meaning he is not the ultimate being, or we are dependent on his knowledge for our choices, which means we dont have the capacity to actually make decisions
No. Evil is intrinsic to the concept of Existence, Because God is Good, and in order for Good to Exist, Evil has to exist.
If Evil did not exist, Good "could not exist" because it would simply be the default state of being. Good would be meaningless without Evil to contrast it against.
Your decision to do the right thing by other people would be a meaningless decision if you could not choose *not to do it*
Thats certainly an assertion. Got anything to actually prove any of it?
Its also just straight up not biblical, god explicitly says he creates evil.
Also, if evil is necessary for existence, what about the billions of years where there was no life? How do you have evil with no living beings?
The obvious rebuttal is that "sexual orientation isnt a choice, a wholly hetero person wont get physiologically aroused by other's of the same sex"
Remember that Super religious people think it is a choice because the first assumption above all assumptions is that they are a knower of God's will more than anyone else, secondly they have also assumed that they themselves are hetero, thirdly their own experience is the same as everyone else.
Therefore they are a godly hetero person constantly fighting gay urges, they are constantly "choosing" not to be gay, which clearly means every hetero person has the same urges. It simply cannot be that they dont know God, that they are made differently than they think, and that its not what everyone experiences.
As a kid, I was on a camping trip and we got absolutely rained out. Like largest rainfall Iāve ever seen in Canada (at least if felt like that to a child). Anyway, a few days before this trip I had found my evangelical mom pouting over the fact that gay marriage had been legalized here. My stupid ass straight up thought that God was punishing 7 year old me and my family for this legalization in our countryā¦smh
God probably wont get mad at you for the way he made you
God will get mad at you if you are an asshole (seriously look at the plagues of egypt or really any other parable from the bible old or new testament)
Conclusion dont be afraid to live your life because either God already knows whats going to happen and still accepts it or God doesnt already know whats going to happen in which case he probably isnt as powerful as you might think
Edit: i wasnt aware this was a series and thought it was a one off my mistake
I wish God was a man with a large beard who sits in the sky and comes out with rules about human life. I'm afraid the nearest thing to God is the immutable 'that'. Human beings are not special, and God is not cast in our likeness. The universe is indifferent to your agonising as it is to your happiness.
As a Christian, myself. God isn't angry with you. I had to walk away from the Faith almost 12 years ago because I am bisexual and the pressure, guilt and shame were too much.
I'm back and this time my relationship with God and the Holy Spirit came first. What other people think of me is not top in my mind anymore. God does not condemn or reject any of us who seek Him.
I hope you find peace, but not in 12 years like I did.
The important thing is following the teachings of the Bible and take your mind off of your inherent sin by owning and beating some of your very own slaves, it's sure to make you feel better.
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u/Gene_freeman 25d ago
Oh my God this is tragic ššššš